Introduction: We aimed to determine the prospective association of smoking status, smoking intensity, and smoking cessation with the risk of hearing loss in a large Japanese cohort. Methods: The cohort study included 50195 employees, who were aged 20-64 years and free of hearing loss at baseline. Participants were followed up for a maximum of 8 years. Pure-tone audiometric testing was performed annually to identify hearing loss at 1 and 4 kHz. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to investigate the association between smoking and hearing loss...

OBJECTIVES: Minimally invasive aortic valve replacement (MIAVR) can be technically demanding and may lead to prolonged operative time. We evaluated the intraoperative and postoperative patient outcomes following implementation of 2 facilitating technologies (FT) in MIAVR: the Cor-Knot titanium fastener and Custodiol-histidine-tryptophan-ketoglutarate solution. METHODS: A total of 299 patients underwent MIAVR from 2008 to 2016; 172 (57.5%) patients were included in the FT group and 127 (42...

A common goal in the analysis of the long-term survival related to a specific disease is to estimate a measure that is comparable between populations with different general population mortality. When cause of death is unavailable or unreliable, as for example in cancer registry studies, relative survival methodology is used-in addition to the mortality data of the patients, we use the data on the mortality of the general population. In this article, we focus on the marginal relative survival measure that summarizes the information about the disease-specific hazard...

Many high-density cities struggle to find space for disposing municipal solid waste. Hong Kong is one of these cities, seeking to scale up waste recovery efforts as an alternative to disposal. However, territory-wide recovery initiatives do not account for socio-economic variations across place, leading to mixed outcomes among diverse communities. This study aims to investigate socio-economic effects on recycling behavior in a sample of subsidized rental housing estates. It constitutes an improvement from previous studies by using the entire estate as a unit of analysis and analyzing actual recycling outcomes, which have received limited attention from researchers...

Within the literature individuals who use the internet to facilitate the sexual abuse of a minor are generally classified as being fantasy or contact driven. Classification is based upon the intended location for sexual climax: fantasy driven individuals aim to reach sexual climax online, whereas contact driven individuals target minors to achieve physical sex offline. This review systematically investigates whether there is an empirical basis for the distinction between these two proposed discrete types. Comparison of tactics and behaviour are considered to examine whether the contact vs...

Reporter virus is a versatile tool to visualize and to analyze virus infections. However, for flaviviruses, it is difficult to maintain the inserted reporter genes on the viral genome, limiting its use in several studies that require homogeneous virus particles and several rounds of virus replication. Here, we showed that flanking inserted GFP genes on both sides with ribosome-skipping 2A sequences improved the stability and the consistency of their fluorescent signals for dengue-virus-serotype 2 (DENV2) reporter viruses...

BACKGROUND: A community hospital combined its medical and surgical patients with cancer on one unit, which resulted in nurses not trained in oncology caring for this patient population. OBJECTIVES: The Oncology Intensives Initiative (ONCii) involved the (a) design and implementation of a daylong didactic boot camp class and a four-hour simulation session and (b) the examination of nurses' worries, attitudes, self-efficacy, and perception of interdisciplinary teamwork...

This field study elaborates the role of grass swale in the management of stormwater in an urban parking lot. Grass swale was constructed by using different vegetations and local soil media in the parking lot of Mapu-gu Seoul, Korea. In this study, rainfall runoff was first retained in soil and the vegetation layers of the grass swale, and then infiltrated rainwater was collected with the help of underground perforated pipe, and passed to an underground storage trench. In this way, grass swale detained a large amount of rainwater for a longer period of time and delayed peak discharge...

Based on the consumption of fossil energy, the CO₂ emissions of Chongqing are calculated and analyzed from 1997 to 2015 in this paper. Based on the calculation results, the consumption of fossil fuels and the corresponding CO₂ emissions of Chongqing in 2020 are predicted, and the supporting data and corresponding policies are provided for the government of Chongqing to reach its goal as the economic unit of low-carbon emission in the '13th Five-Year Plan'. The results of the analysis show that there is a rapid decreasing trend of CO₂ emissions in Chongqing during the '12th Five-Year Plan', which are caused by the adjustment policy of the energy structure in Chongqing...

BACKGROUND: Many studies have confirmed that the size and location of necrotic lesions are major factors that affect the prevalence of collapse and prognosis in patients with osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH). Although several classification systems categorize and quantify ONFH, there is no agreement on which one is most useful for the purpose. QUESTIONS/PURPOSES: We compared the Steinberg, modified Kerboul, and Japanese Investigation Committee (JIC) classifications of ONFH in terms of (1) the correlation among the three different classification systems...

We investigated the association between environmental exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) and risk of lymphoma subtypes in a case-control study comprised of 322 patients and 444 individuals serving as controls in Sardinia, Italy in 1998-2004. Questionnaire information included the self-reported distance of the three longest held residential addresses from fixed radio-television transmitters and mobile phone base stations. We georeferenced the residential addresses of all study subjects and obtained the spatial coordinates of mobile phone base stations...

Arterial stiffness and wave reflection are important components of the ventricular afterload. Therefore, we aimed to assess the arterial wave characteristics and mechanical properties of the proximal pulmonary arteries (PAs) in the hypoxic pulmonary hypertensive rat model. After 21 days in normoxic or hypoxic chambers (24 animals in each group), the animals underwent transthoracic echocardiography and pulmonary artery catheterization with a dual-tipped pressure and Doppler flow sensor wire. Wave intensity analysis (WIA) was performed...

OBJECTIVE: Describe the frequency and characteristics of PICU patients who undergo a process of withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment (LTSV), between 2004 y 2014. PATIENTS AND METHOD: A retrospective, observational descriptive study, using two documents for quality assessment in the PICU of Hospital Roberto del Río: 1) daily individual patient tracking log and 2) daily record of quality indicators, including LTSV, both updated daily at the morning visit...

As part of its Single Technology Appraisal process, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) invited the manufacturer (Pfizer) of tofacitinib (TOF; Xeljanz® ) to submit evidence of the drug's clinical and cost-effectiveness in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) after the failure of conventional disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (cDMARDs). The School of Health and Related Research Technology Appraisal Group at the University of Sheffield was commissioned to act as the independent Evidence Review Group (ERG)...

The use of pesticides in agriculture can make their way into the earth and wash into the amphibian system causing ecological stress. This study aims to understand the changes occurring in gill tissues as a result of fenvalerate exposure using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. The intensity ratio of the selected bands I1545 /I1657, I2924 /I2853 , and I1045 /I1545 measures changes in proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates. Curve-fitting analysis was performed in the selected band region to analyze the quantitative changes of proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates...

Tracheotomy is widely used in intensive care units, albeit with great disparities between medical teams in terms of frequency and modality. Indications and techniques are, however, associated with variable levels of evidence based on inhomogeneous or even contradictory literature. Our aim was to conduct a systematic analysis of the published data in order to provide guidelines. We present herein recommendations for the use of tracheotomy in adult critically ill patients developed using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) method...

PURPOSE: To retrospectively analyze the evolution of indeterminate hepatocellular nodules in cirrhotic patients on serial Gd-EOB-DPTA-enhanced MRI, and to identify predictors of HCC development. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This IRB approved study included 33 cirrhotic patients with 69 indeterminate hepatocellular nodules (mean diameter 1.1 cm) at baseline Gd-EOB-DPTA-enhanced MRI and a Gd-EOB-DPTA-enhanced-MRI follow-up of at least 2 years. Two radiologists evaluated size and signal intensity of each nodule at baseline and follow-up...

Objective: Stage N2-3 nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) shows a high risk of distant metastasis, which will finally cause death. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) of various cycles before radical radiotherapy on distant metastasis and survival of patients with stage N2-3 diseases. Methods: In this study, a total of 1,164 consecutive patients with non-metastatic N2-3 NPC were recruited and prospectively observed. Then 231 patients who received NACT of 4 cycles (NACT=4 group) were matched 1:2:1 to 462 patients treated with NACT of 2 cycles (NACT=2 group) and 231 patients treated without NACT (NACT=0 group), according to age, histological subtype, N stage and NACT regimen...

OBJECTIVES: The Pancreatitis Activity Scoring System (PASS) has been derived by an international group of experts via a modified Delphi process. Our aim was to perform an external validation study to assess for concordance of the PASS score with high face validity clinical outcomes and determine specific meaningful thresholds to assist in application of this scoring system in a large prospectively ascertained cohort. METHODS: We analyzed data from a prospective cohort study of consecutive patients admitted to the Los Angeles County Hospital between March 2015 and March 2017...